38 chapter - Swamp Zone (1)

The moment we stepped into the Gate—

“Huh? ……!!”

There was no ground.

And immediately, we began to fall.

I angled my headlamp in the direction we were dropping—way below, I spotted the ground.

A forest.

As I twisted my body in midair, the night sky—cloud-choked and starless—came into view.

‘Why is there a sky?’

F-Rank Gates didn’t have skies.

Which meant this wasn’t an F-Rank Gate.

‘You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.’

I’d gotten careless.

Checking the internal environment before entering a Gate was one of the most basic procedures.

‘All I did was kill a single C-Rank boss.’

Sure, I used a gun, cleared a C-Rank Gate wave, and earned recognition from Yechan, a high-ranking Mountain Guild officer, but I must’ve let it get to my head.

“Kyaaaaa—!”

Yuna’s scream echoed from above.

‘Focus, dammit.’

Regret was pointless now.

It’s called regret because it always comes too late.

What mattered now was what to do next.

‘I have to catch Yuna.’

I’d survive the fall—but it was dangerously high for her.

Fortunately, she was dropping just above me.

‘I’ll break her fall.’

But first, I had to land properly myself.

Just as I prepared for a breakfall, something caught my eye.

‘……Wait.’

The beam from my headlamp was cutting through something below—

Not dirt.

Water.

SPLASH!

We plunged into a body of water thick with green algae.

‘A swamp.’

From the muddy bottom, I kicked off and surfaced fast.

“Puhah!”

Water reached up to my belly button.

Too deep to drop into safely without preparation.

“Aaaaahhh!”

Yuna was falling in with a splash loud enough to pinpoint her location easily.

Thanks to that, I managed to catch her in time.

THUD! SPLASH!

The impact was absorbed by both my arms and the water. Yuna landed without injury.

“You okay?”

“O-Oppa?”

Her face was soaked with tears.

Still crying, she asked,

“W-What just happened?!”

“Looks like… this isn’t an F-Rank Gate.”

“What?”

I nodded toward the sky, and Yuna dazedly looked up.

“There’s a sky…”

“That was my mistake. The Gate’s rank is determined by the mana it emits—but I judged it by size alone and assumed F-Rank.”

“……That’s not a bad method. Mana output does correlate with Gate size.”

She exhaled deeply.

“This is my fault.”

“What?”

“Unusual Gates. Some of them operate on different rules. And I studied Gateology… and I couldn’t even recognize that…”

I placed a hand gently on her head.

“This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I pushed for the raid, and I didn’t do any environmental checks before entering. I wasn’t careful.”

The real issue was lack of experience.

This situation made it painfully clear: I’d only ever cleared F-Rank Gates for the past three years.

I helped her stand on solid ground and continued.

“Anyway, we need to get out of here. The problem is—”

I looked up.

The Gate hovered far above us in the sky, glowing like a star.

“How the hell do we get back up there?”

Clearing this Gate wasn’t an option.

We didn’t know if it was D-Rank, C-Rank—or worse.

‘If it’s a swamp, I can guess the monsters we’re dealing with…’

But still, just the two of us clearing it? Not happening.

Only one conclusion.

‘We need to get out. ASAP.’

The issue: the Gate was way too high up.

‘Maybe if I use my Skill and jump…?’

If I stripped off all gear and leaped with everything I had, maybe.

Yuna asked as I started undressing.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to try jumping. If I make it, I’ll drop a rope. Pack our gear and come up after. Got it?”

She wiped her tears and nodded.

“Okay.”

I climbed out of the water and onto a nearby tree.

Activated my Skill by putting a drop of blood in my right eye, then jumped.

‘……Nope.’

Tried several more times. All failed.

The Gate was just too high.

“No choice.”

That left only one path for us.

“We’ll have to wait for rescue.”

We’d entered a Gate without authorization.

It had appeared inside Yuna’s apartment, meaning no one might even know it existed.

That was risky.

But self-extraction looked impossible.

We climbed onto a nearby patch of dry ground.

It was tiny—maybe ten square meters—and squelched with swampy muck.

At least there was a rock big enough for one person to sit on.

“How long do you think it’ll take?”

“With luck? A day or two.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Our only real hope: we had a scheduled F-Rank Gate raid tomorrow.

If we no-showed, the Bureau might send someone to check.

They might find the Gate in Yuna’s place.

I told her as much, and her face brightened.

“If that’s the case, I think I can hang in there.”

“……Yeah.”

But I didn’t mention the worst-case scenarios.

Like if the Bureau officer slacked off and didn’t bother coming.

‘If it goes unnoticed until full erosion, this place—our home—could turn into a swamp.’

Just as I was lost in thought—

“Oppa.”

Yuna called out softly.

“Look over there.”

She pointed.

A flicker of blue light shimmered in the distance.

Thanks to my still-active Skill, I could clearly make out their forms.

‘Lizardmen.’

A C-Rank monster species, native to swamp-type Gates. They live in packs, like Orcs.

Even on recon missions, they never travel alone.

Right now, three or four were watching us.

‘This is bad.’

Lizardmen were on the weaker end of C-Ranks.

Physically inferior to Orcs by a large margin.

But Gates with Lizardmen had some of the highest difficulty ratings among C-Ranks.

Because of this goddamn environment.

‘Fighting Lizardmen in a swamp is suicide.’

Their blood contains a paralytic toxin.

If you fight them in water and the blood spreads, you’ll get paralyzed and drown.

That’s why you’re supposed to fight them at range.

‘But…’

No Jin-sol. No Soo-ah.

Just Yuna and her crossbow.

That wasn’t enough to wipe out a full Lizardman squad.

“There’s more of them showing up.”

“Yeah.”

They were surrounding us.

Yuna raised her crossbow.

“Should I shoot?”

“No. Wait for them to attack first.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to thin their numbers early?”

“Unless you hit their head, they’ll regenerate. Wait until they’re close enough for a sure shot.”

She nodded and lowered her weapon.

When their numbers hit double digits—

Squelch.

They started climbing toward us, weapons in hand—bone daggers and spears.

I grabbed Yuna’s hand.

VMMMMM.

Her warm light wrapped around me, illuminating the area.

I boosted her onto the rock and drew my sword.

At the same time, I gave the command.

“Attack.”

“Got it!”

Her arrow flew—straight through the skull of a Lizardman holding a spear.

It dropped without a sound.

-SKREEEEE!

Another one, enraged by its comrade’s death, lunged at me with a dagger.

SHHK!

The Mountain Guild-issued sword was legit.

With one clean swing, I took its head off. The others pulled back.

They were being more cautious now.

I used the moment to lower my stance—and dipped my hand into the dead Lizardman’s blood.

Then I hesitated.

‘……If we don’t do something, we’ll die here.’

Screw it.

I dabbed the blood into my right eye.

VMMM!

The moment my Trait activated, Yuna’s light wavered violently around me.

I took a second to assess—no issues.

‘It worked.’

A grin tugged at my lips.

Yuna’s light didn’t just heal wounds and block mental attacks or empower spiritual strikes.

‘It also neutralizes poison.’

This changed everything.

I applied more blood to my eye, reactivated the Skill, and calmly waded into [N O V E L I G H T] the water.

“Oppa!”

“I’m fine! Just cover the ones trying to get up onto land!”

“……Okay!”

The Lizardmen seemed confused at first—but realizing the swamp was their domain, they charged in boldly.

They began to surround me—and attack.

-SKREEEE!

One burst out of the water with a bone spear.

I deflected it effortlessly and took off its head.

Even waist-deep, I could still handle surface-level attackers.

But others were swimming below—daggers in hand.

The ones above were a decoy.

I struck downward at one below.

SPLASH!

A burst of blood blossomed under the surface like a grotesque flower.

They didn’t flinch. More came.

THWACK!

A sharp sting in my thigh.

I retaliated with a swing—but the attacker was already gone.

As the fight dragged on, blood clouded the water, blurring everything. I couldn’t track their movements.

This was how they hunted prey stronger than themselves:

Cut after cut—enough to get their poison into the bloodstream.

THWACK!

This time, my right calf.

I stabbed instinctively. Blood surged—and with it, power.

Got that one.

The fight dragged on.

They tried again and again to wound me, and I hunted them like a deadly game of hide-and-seek.

-Skree?

When I’d killed more than half, they realized something was wrong.

By now, I should’ve been paralyzed—but I was still moving fine.

‘Took you long enough to figure it out.’

They backed off and disappeared into the water.

They were retreating.

I wanted to chase them down, finish them—but they were faster in water.

VMMM.

And Yuna’s light was fading.

I returned to her position.

“Oppa?”

She was standing on the rock, bow drawn.

I waved.

“Yeah, it’s me!”

“Before you come up… can you collect some of those arrows from the Lizardman corpses?”

“What?”

Floating around the shore were bodies—all with arrows in their foreheads.

All Yuna’s kills.

I collected them and handed them back.

“Dead center. Every shot.”

She smiled proudly.

“Just like you said. I only shot when I was sure I’d hit.”

If she had a tail, it’d be wagging like a propeller.

I ruffled her hair.

“Nice work.”

She was better than I expected.

For someone who’d only trained a few times at the Mountain Guild range, her accuracy was exceptional.

‘If we can find a bigger patch of dry land, we could hold out until rescue.’

Maybe even take down the boss.

Lizardmen were deadly in water—but on land, they lost over half their strength.

Even the boss.

‘If we manage to kill it, everything gets easier.’

That’s when it happened.

Plop. Plop.

Rain.

It quickly turned into a downpour.

SHHHHHHHH!

My face twisted into a deep scowl.

‘……Shit. Now we’re screwed.’